The present invention relates to heat collecting, transferring and storing apparatus and systems especially useful in conjunction with solar energy. More particulary, the present invention relates to units and systems capable of trapping heat energy from solar rays and for transferring the heat energy for utilization at locations requiring same. The present invention is primarily useful for converting solar rays into heat energy required to meet any heat energy demand such as warming of buildings, heating water for usual hot water usage or the like. However, the invention can be employed in a reverse operation to provide cooling as will readily be understood by those having normal skill in the art.
The increased awareness of the limitations upon the resources of the earth per se for providing long term energy requirements in an environmentally compatible manner has caused serious consideration to be given to other energy source alternatives. One particularly intriguing alternate energy source is the solar rays. Various devices have been developed for the purpose of extracting heat energy from the sun. Furthermore, various heat storing and transferring systems have been developed to receive the heat from the extracting devices since the solar energy is frequently not available when most needed, namely at night and during overcase periods.
The greater heat absorbing characteristics of black or dark surface materials has been recognized for some time and all solar heat gatherers employ this phenomena to one extent or another. Although devices have been tried using parabolic concentrators and the like for heat collection, such devices tend to be impractical for most everyday heat requirements. Therefore, the more useful approach is to employ large, flat black surfaced panels with various schemes for the purpose of transferring the heat absorbed thereby. For instance, one prior art approach is to place an array of staggered black-coated panels behind a glass cover and to blow air over them for heating and movement to another location where the heat is transferred into a storing arrangement such as water tanks, rock pits or the like. Examples of collector units employing air over a heat absorbing layer are U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,484,127 by Stelzer, 2,680,565 by Lof, 3,832,992 by Trombe et al., 3,919,998 by Parker, and 3,948,247 by Heilemann. Others have attempted to use air flow over the rear of the heat asborbing collector plates as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 246,626 by Morse, 2,931,578 by Thompson and 3,893,506 by Laing. Still others have suggested using transparent blocks to reduce solar heat introduction to a room as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,107,052 by Garrison and B, 512,745 by Deminet et al. while yet other prior art devices have used heat absorbing, opaque fluid as the heat intercepting medium. However, for reasons pointed out in the detailed description below, none of these devices enjoy the efficiency of the collector elements in accordance with this invention nor do any known prior art systems suggest the advantageous controlled flow volume and drainable system of this invention nor the heat layer segregating storage tank hereof.